Cerys Hafana is a composer and multi-instrumentalist, best known for exploring the triple harp’s creative possibilities and unique qualities. As demonstrated on her new single Tragwyddoldeb, she’s an adept shapeshifter, entwining tradition with direct and personal interpretations to create music that’s both progressive, profound and inspiring.
She is also interested in found sounds, archive materials and electronic processing. She comes from Machynlleth, Wales, where rivers and roads meet on the way to the sea.
Having released her debut album, Cwmwl, in 2020, Cerys has also filmed an episode of the TV show Curadur exploring the stranger side of Welsh folk music, contributed an essay on Welsh music and queer identity to Welsh (Plural), and recently recorded a live session at the BBC Maida Vale studios with Horizons Cymru.
Tragwyddoldeb [Eternity] (pronounced trag-with-ol-deb) is the first single(out 25th July) from her second album, Edyf [Thread] (pronounced eh-div), which will be released on 15th September. The song’s words have been adapted from a hymn found in the Welsh National Library’s ballads archive and express the unidentified author’s amazement at the concept of eternity. The track was recorded in the depths of winter in an old church by the sea and features Cerys on triple harp and vocals, Sam Robinson on bodhrán, Jordan Price Williams on double bass and Elaine Turnbull on an Eastern European althorn.
Cerys shared the following:
I was looking for ballads, hymns and poems in the archive that had some sort of connection to my life now, however tenuous. Lots of the ones that I found were very Biblical, but as they probably hadn’t been sung for hundreds of years, I felt I had a right to remove the more explicitly religious bits and focus on the parts that spoke to me. Tragwyddoldeb – Eternity – was originally about eternity in the heavenly sense, but the verses reminded me of how I felt when I was first introduced to the idea that the universe is infinite. (I also liked the slightly GCSE-English-language metaphors for time in the verses (see below). Old Welsh poetry can be slightly impenetrable but this song was surprisingly accessible.)
The song is made up of one repeating chord progression and repeating cross-rhythms and patterns which could only be played on a triple harp.
A rough translation of the first chorus and verse:
Eternity, eternity, how long are you, eternity?
Time moves towards you, like a war horse in all its strength,
Like the fastest runner; a boat to harbour; an arrow from a bow,
Like a complete sphere, without beginning or end,
You, eternity, also have no ending nor beginning.
It was recorded by Mike West in his converted-church studios in Borth, surrounded by marshland on one side and the sea on the other.
Upcoming Dates
Eisteddfod Genedlaethol Cymru, Tregaron (2/8/22)
Festival Interceltique de Lorient (5-14/8/22)
Green Man Festival (18/8/22)
Camp Good Life (16-18/9/22)
Website: https://ceryshafana.com/